


The Psychology of Making Mistakes

by orphan_account



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-31 19:57:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21251630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Being careful doesn't exactly mean being rational.(Or, Sasuke refuses to dispel Naruto's clone due to questionable life choices.)
Relationships: Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 8
Kudos: 229





	The Psychology of Making Mistakes

Usually, Sasuke is a very careful person.

That’s all there is to say.

/

It comes slow, creeping. Like lights blinking until it finally flickers bright with one last electrical hum. Or like water being poured from one cup to another. Naruto’s smile is two-thirds water, one-third light. It feels like sunlight touching the deepest the ocean allows it to touch. Sasuke’s heart drops to the seafloor, hoping Naruto won’t find it.

But of course, Naruto is Naruto. And for some reason he always seems to have some sort of inner compass when it comes to Sasuke, wildly spinning in all directions but spinning anyway. Defying all sorts of explanation until he finds Sasuke with sheer determination alone. 

This time, though, Sasuke can’t admit he hadn’t given Naruto a hand in treading a newer part of the recesses of his mind. Not especially when he can still feel the imaginary pulse on Naruto’s lips against his. Not when they’re both flushed and quiet and walking on eggshells that could crack at any second. Not when _this _happened and Sasuke can’t even find anything to blame it to, damn it.

And so, it comes: 

“Sasuke,” Naruto says, voice brewing, wide eyes staring at him as if to say _EUREKA!!!_. As if there was something reverent about the way everything has unfolded. “Sasuke! You—”

Sasuke scrunches his eyes. “Please don’t say it.”

“You… you kissed me!” Naruto says, and there it is: the full-blinding smile that Sasuke dreads. “You kissed me! You—”

“Shut up—”

“You like me!” Naruto chooses to say this revelation next as if yelling it will somehow establish its truth. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe it! Wait until _I _actually find out about this. Oh my god, I have to deliver this information to—” Then, he lifts his hands to make some sort of sign—

—which Sasuke immediately clambers to stop.

“No,” he says, thoughts a whirlpool at the possibility of the actual Naruto finding out. Sasuke grips the clone’s hand tighter, stronger, uncaring of Naruto’s _ow-ow-OW!!! _which seems to escalate in decibel by the second. He snarls, “Don’t you fucking do it.”

Naruto yells, “Let me go, you bastard!”

Sasuke yells back, “Not if you’re going to dispel yourself!”

“Ow! Why the hell would I not do that?!”

“Have fun trudging back to the real Naruto with broken fingers then!”

“Ow, ow, _ouch! _Fuck!” Naruto hisses, hand bending painfully and turning delightfully red at every passing moment. Sasuke’s heart is pulsing in his throat. “Alright, fine! _Fine! _I’m not going!" 

“Swear it!” 

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“Swear it, or I’m going to break your hand!”

“Alright, I swear I’m not going back to the real Naruto!” Naruto says, and his last yell is coated in pure pain as Sasuke twists his hand one last time for good measure. “_Fuck! _You’re _insane!_”

Sasuke scowls at him. He needs to leave to calm himself down. 

“What the hell, my hands are actually broken at this point!” Naruto pitifully whimpers, cradling his (possibly) temporarily demented hands that seem to have lost all its colour. He glares at Sasuke. “Why can’t you just like people the normal way?”

“Bold of you to assume I like you,” Sasuke spits, feeling scathed, like a wound wide open.

“Good to know that you usually kiss people you don’t like then!” Naruto huffs, and Sasuke really should’ve left when he got the chance because Naruto’s thoughts are a freight train nobody can stop until it reaches his mouth in a shinkansen of unthinkable sentences. He says, “Really, Sasuke, if you wanted to hold my hand that bad then you could’ve just said so.”

Sasuke retreats to his room and slams the door to his face. 

/ 

Accidents happen. Preceded by unassuming events, caused by inevitable outside forces. With the incidence earlier, Sasuke can only tick off one of the two. A laughing Naruto was the unassuming event but Sasuke’s uncharacteristic need to act upon his stupid urge was—sadly—_not _an outside force, he’s pretty sure. So, of course, there’s no one to blame but himself.

_I am a shinobi_, he tells himself. _And more than that, I am an Uchiha. I am more than capable of finding a solution to this problem._

He almost trips over Naruto when he walks out of the room three minutes and a pep talk later. 

“Decided to come out, have you?” Naruto says, sitting up from where he’d been lying face down on Sasuke’s wooden floors. “Haha, get it? Came out in the sense that you came out of your room and that you finally admitted your—”

Sasuke feels a headache coming. “Please stop talking.” 

“Oh?” Naruto says. “Would you also like me to leave?”

“If you leave this apartment, I’m going to drag you back by the tail of your hitai-ate.” Sasuke pauses, “Or _I’m _going to leave.” 

Naruto laughs. “You’re kidding.”

Sasuke stares at him. 

“No.” Naruto’s smile drops, “What the hell! It’s not as if I’m not gonna eventually find out anyway. I’m inevitably gonna be dispelled soon either by your hands or by the real me. You know you can’t keep me here forever.”

_Watch me _is what Sasuke wants to say but what he jabs is, “What’s a clone Naruto even doing here in the first place? Didn’t you promise to train with Lee today?”

Naruto slumps his shoulders. “Yes, and I haven’t had a single break. We’ve been at it since the morning so real Naruto decided to send a clone to Ichiraku’s and I decided to stop by for a while after.” 

Sasuke’s tongue feels heavy with the remnant miso burning still.

“Since I’ll be here for a while, can I maybe nap for a bit?” Naruto asks, yawning as he walks to the couch. His socked feet hit the sole presence of life in Sasuke’s apartment—a succulent—in ways that has Sasuke’s eye twitching. “It’d be helpful when I finally come back.” 

“Oh, you’re not coming back.”

“Sure, Sasuke,” Naruto laughs, as he rests on crossed hands and shuts his eyes close. It’s a teetering kind of quiet for a while before Naruto’s eyes and mouth fly open again to hopefully chirp: “Good night kiss?” 

Sasuke wants to kick the grin off his face but a force that strong considering Sasuke's pent-up fury could possibly dispel him and lead to bigger problems. He only grits, “In your dreams,” as the idiot’s laugh pour through his body like fuel to a fire.

/ 

Inevitably, Naruto’s clone is gonna have to leave. And he’s going to find out, and Sasuke’s going to have to face reality and brace himself for the blinding enthusiasm the blond’s probably gonna shove to him.

Two options: run away or quell the five-year ache on his chest.

Sasuke feels all sense of organization drain off his fingertips. To dilute the feeling, he rearranges his shuriken and kunai and mentally counts backwards. When Naruto stirs with a mumble that tapers off to something that sounds suspiciously like the last syllable of Sasuke’s name, he stops at 53 and counts with gritted teeth from 100 again.

/

When Naruto wakes up, the first thing he does is look at the clock. The second is to dazedly blink at Sasuke from the hallway with all the blades laid on the bed. The third is to say, with a very serious look on his face, “I need to go back.”

Even more so than he already is, Sasuke stills.

“I need to go back,” Naruto repeats with more conviction this time. “I’m going back.”

Sasuke’s reaction comes automatic. The shuriken slices Naruto’s index finger even before he can completely raise his hands to form a seal. It bounces from the archway, slashes a clean cut on the floor directly behind Naruto’s left foot. The silence that comes after is deafening. 

“Right,” Naruto says, and his smile is torpid. A slow-burning forest fire threatening to consume. “Okay, I see how it is.”

“Naruto—”

“Okay, here’s a proposition for you,” Naruto starts. “Sparring but with little to no damage to surroundings as much as possible. Taijutsu only. No leaving the apartment. First one to pin the other wins. If I win, I stay here for as long as you like. If you lose, I go.” His grin is feral as he tilts his head, “Deal? What do you say, Sasuke?” 

Sasuke weighs his options. Naruto’s tightening his headband, unsheathing a kunai from one of his pockets. He’s confident, like he knows Sasuke’s answer already before Sasuke himself even knows. And perhaps he _does _know, and perhaps that's what _does _make Sasuke decide to agree. The challenge on Naruto’s eyes beckon, blue eyes infuriatingly teasing and asking _are you gonna run again?_

Sasuke tugs the shuriken to him again, slicing the fabric on Naruto’s left ankle open. Naruto’s hiss almost pulls a smile to his lips. “We’re not yet starting but you’re already losing, Naruto,” Sasuke says.

At that, Naruto grins. “Oh, you’re on, bastard.”

What follows is a flurry of movement only a Sharingan would allow him to see. Parrying’s easy, natural almost. Sasuke can read Naruto’s movements like a fucking picture book and tell how the blond’s gonna move next. He dodges a punch to the jaw, counters with an elbow to Naruto’s face. In an instant, they’re moving outside Sasuke’s room, inching closer and closer to the living room.

“You do realize,” Naruto heaves, talking even as they fight, “that if you hit too hard you’re probably gonna dispel me, right?”

“I’m well aware of that but that doesn’t mean I’ll go easy on you,” Sasuke says as he hits the edge of a couch. He backpedals so the couch, probably the most expensive thing in his apartment, makes it at least. 

“Oh, I wasn’t asking you to,” Naruto laughs, managing to dodge Sasuke’s kunai inches away from his face. “In fact, hit me hard. I don’t care. You’re gonna end up losing anyway.”

Sasuke catches Naruto’s hand, uses it to twist him until his back’s against Sasuke’s chest. He whispers, “Try me,” before pushing Naruto with great force the blond hits the floor face first. 

“Fuck,” Naruto groans. He only has a second to roll away before Sasuke’s striking again. Their knees knock together painfully, and Sasuke’s arms keep on hitting the edges of a glass table as he hits Naruto but he doesn’t care. Naruto crosses his arms over his head, blocks the next attack. For some strange reason, the unexpected break from what was supposed to be a succession of punches throws Sasuke off and Naruto takes advantage, rolling them over until he’s on top.

“Got you—” Naruto says but he’s cut off by Sasuke head-butting him. He’s thrown off balance, legs on either side of Sasuke loosening so Sasuke pushes him back, _back _until Naruto hits the ground again, upper back hitting the wooden floors with a loud thud. 

He pins both Naruto’s thrashing hands with his elbows and slots a kunai under Naruto’s throat, the edge of the blade threatening to slice through the skin. Sasuke’s chest is drumming, lungs stapled as Naruto breathes hard below him and stares up at him with full-blown pupils.

After a moment, Naruto croaks, “I won.” 

“You won?” Sasuke raises an eyebrow, presses the blade closer to his skin to make a point. “I have you pinned.”

And at that, Naruto grins. “I know,” he says, then swoops up to press his mouth against Sasuke’s. Cold water pours through Sasuke’s skin, leaves him shocked and gasping until Naruto’s tilting his head _that _way and swiping his tongue _this _way. And then it’s fire, a consuming heat that crystallizes a concentrated coin of heat on Sasuke’s stomach that has him pushing back against Naruto, finally responding. _Finally _kissing back. It bottoms out even more when he feels Naruto smile against his lips, breath huffing against him in what almost seems like a chuckle, as he holds Sasuke closer. Tighter, _more_.

They kiss for what seems like hours until Naruto pulls away, presses a final bite to Sasuke’s lower lip that has him hissing. Sasuke suddenly remembers where they are, remembers the kunai he’s pressing on Naruto’s throat. And then he realizes, looking down at Naruto’s stupid, dazed, dopey smile, that he’s definitely and utterly _fucked_. 

“You’re beautiful,” Naruto says. 

“And you’re fucking insane,” Sasuke grits, and then Naruto’s meeting the blade head-first, slicing it through his throat and face as deep as it can. He disappears, dematerializes out of thin air just like that, leaving Sasuke confused, and terrified, and _furious _all at the same time. 

His instinct tells him to run, to take off after the idiot, thoughts a jumbled mess of _imgonnastranglehimimgonnakisshimimgonnaKILLhim_. Before he knows it, his feet’s scrambling to the door and just as his hands fly to the knob, he senses it: a very, very familiar chakra that floods his stomach with dread.

Sasuke pulls the door just as it’s pushed from the outside.

Naruto stands inches away, looking dazed and eyes furrowed the way it does when a newly-dispelled clone delivers information to him. His hands slide off the knob, and then he looks at Sasuke. Eyes first, then down to Sasuke’s lips. Blinking, blinking— 

Then, Naruto—the real one, he can tell—grins.

/

The couch almost breaks, this time.


End file.
